Why Wednesday #3

Adopt Africa Digital Designs I used her design she made because it embodies it all! We need Africa as much as Africa needs us! Thank you Becky for what you're doing to make a difference for the Continent of Africa as a whole!

Why Africa?
God placed Africa on my heart a few years back. In fact, when Oprah opened her school there, I looked into traveling there to teach. Since I'm not the biggest fan of Oprah I looked more into teaching for the department of defense. Know I wasn't a Christian then, so the thought of being a missionary never crossed my mind ;-) Something about the people grabs my heart. I weep over the poverty and hurt they have experienced. But rejoice and smile over their BIG, beautiful, bright smiles!

When it came time to think about (we didn't pray, we thunk) where we wanted our child to come from, we immediately said Africa. But like I said, we thought about it. We put our little minds into the plan and thought that an African child would not fit well in our Dalhart community.
I contacted our program coordinator at Little Miracles and shared my slight concerns. She was great about explaining some issues we might have and encouraged us to really pray about where God wants us to adopt from. We looked into all of the other programs and contacted a few more agencies about their programs. Trevor has traveled to Colombia for a mission trip and has a heart for their people so we looked into that program. The approximate wait time is 3-4 years and no possibility of getting a baby. We definitely said no to a Russian child because we didn't want people to think we wanted a white baby to look like us ( I know our pride got the best of us). Our church has an orphanage in Burma so we thought maybe an Asian child. Well back in August I was at our big XIT parade. A dear friend who isn't afraid to speak her mind (which I appreciate) asked how the process was going. I shared my concerns about adopting a black baby because there just aren't many African Americans in our community and I can't offer the multi-cultural experiences they need. I told her we were looking into an Asian country.  She said, "When you close your eyes and picture your child what do you see?" I said, "A sweet little African boy with a bright, amazing smile!"

I walked back home after the parade and put the kids down for a nap. I went to check my e-mail and received a reply back from an adoption agency. They stated that we could not adopt from ANY European or Asian country due to Trevor's pre-existing medical condition (leukemia). At first I started to cry tears of sadness then immediately God turned it to tears of joy and reminded me of the little boy He had placed on my heart years before. I jumped around for joy and began looking at all of the African programs our agency offered. I also spent the next two hours reading every African adoption blog available (This was during nap time...that's how I had 2 hours to read ;-)).

We contacted our program director that night and set up a conference call. The following evening, after the kids were in bed, we spent an hour talking to her about the different programs they offered. Little Miracles works with Ethiopia, Uganda and they had just opened up Congo a month prior. We had heard Ethiopia had reduced adoptions by 90% so the wait time was increased to 1.5-2 years. Uganda we would have to live there for 2 months and having 2 babies at home I didn't think I could leave them for that long. So she discussed Congo in detail. Their first pilot family was going through the program and gave them a 6-9 month wait time and a high possibility of getting a baby.**Note. When I say baby I mean less than 2 years old. There is no such thing as bringing home a 6 month or under baby. By the time ALL of the paperwork and travel is complete, they are usually around a year old! She e-mailed me an issues to consider form and told us to pray about it for awhile.

Trevor and I filled out the four page questionnaire answering all of the questions you can imagine about issues with adopting an African child. We then researched Congo. I think I saw a tear or two in Trevor's eyes as we watched videos and saw pictures of the life of the Congolese people..especially the orphans. Our heart was heavy. My eyes were swollen. Our desires ever so great. After praying together and hours of prayer time alone, we knew without a doubt, no matter the color, no matter the challenges, our baby was in Africa.

God showed us that love knows no boundaries. Praise Jesus He doesn't see the color. He looks at the heart. We know there will be issues we have to deal with and people's negative attitudes, but we know without a doubt God, will give us the strength and wisdom to get us through. Baby Kohen, you belong with us. You are the missing link to complete our family and we love you so much!!

(Join me for Why Congo next week...hopefully..depending on how the week goes ;-))